Deal
by subduedfangirl
Summary: Levi dipped his head and started to close the door. Hanji slammed her hand on it, pushing back against the wood. "I'm not leaving until you give me an answer, Levi." [Written for Levihan Week 2015. Prompt - Feathers/Wings]


_He's with the bodies_ had a multitude of meanings, none of which were good. Hanji speed-walked through the camp, looking for the circle of wagons and white sheets where they were keeping those they'd lost. She discarded the possibility that Levi had died—that kind of news would've traveled fast. More likely was the possibility that something had happened to his team. However, Hanji wanted to assume something like that would've made its way around camp as well.

The wagon circle came into view and Hanji walked faster. She hoped that no matter the reason, Levi wasn't in there alone.

He was.

Hanji passed through a gap in the circle and saw him. His back was to her, and he sat next to a figure covered in white. The air felt heavier inside the wagon circle. There were a few dozen figures on the ground in the surrounding area with white sheets covering them. Some of them had bloodstains seeping through the fabric.

Hanji turned her eyes back to Levi and swallowed. Levi had pulled part of the sheet back, and Hanji could see the fallen soldier's pale face. It was familiar, but Hanji couldn't think of his name right away. Her first thought had been to call out to him, but now that she was standing here, somehow she couldn't. Hanji took another step forward instead, and at the same time Levi raised his hand.

Hanji stopped, watching as Levi reached for the winged emblem on the dead soldier's jacket. With practiced care, he ripped it off the chest pocket in one motion, leaving a hole of fabric behind. He moved to the jacket shoulder, turning the dead man's arm to bring the embroidered patch into view. The edges were stained with blood. Levi ripped that one off as well. He lined up the edges of the wings in his hand before moving the fallen soldier's arm back under the sheet, handling it like a piece of glass.

Hanji stood transfixed until Levi pulled the sheet over the man's face once more. She continued to stand still in the heavy silence, starting to wonder if she should've come at all. She'd had no idea that Levi did this kind of thing, and her curiosity started to outweigh her desire to not break the silence. Hanji took another step forward.

The crunch of grass under Hanji's feet when she moved sounded more like shattering glass. Levi turned from where he was, looking up at Hanji with sunken eyes, his face more unreadable than ever.

"What?" he asked.

Hanji shivered, his voice reminding her of cold winter night watches she'd done as a recruit. "It…just seemed like you were taking a while," Hanji lied. She found herself staring at her feet while Levi stood up.

"I'm done now," he said.

Hanji could see the frayed edge of a ripped piece of fabric clenched in his right fist. "Levi," she started, raising her head. "Why did you—"

"You should get your squad back in formation before it's time to leave," Levi said, walking past her.

"But—" Hanji turned, her cloak catching on the breeze and billowing around her, blocking her view of Levi's expression. When it settled down, he'd already passed through the wagon circle and was gone.

Hanji set her mouth in a straight line. She still didn't like this.

* * *

It took a solid minute of knocking on Levi's door that evening before he answered. Hanji started talking as soon as he opened the door.

"His name was Finn," Hanji started, reciting what she'd learned from the mission report. "His squad was placed next to yours, on the outer side. He was the first to fire a flare signaling an abnormal sighting. He followed it when it broke through the formation and headed for your squad, and engaged it before it could make contact. He died to give your squad a chance to retaliate. Am I right?"

Levi's eyes looked just as sunken as they'd been when Hanji had seen him last. He leaned against the doorframe and stared up at her. "What's your point, shitty glasses?"

"Most people would think that taking down the abnormal that killed him would be enough," Hanji said. "But you took his patches too. Why?"

Levi dipped his head and started to close the door.

Hanji slammed her hand on it, pushing back against the wood. "I'm not leaving until you give me an answer, Levi."

"Stay out of it, Hanji," Levi said, but he didn't make another move to close the door. He sounded so _tired_.

Hanji waited a moment before trying again, biting her lip. "I fought alongside him too," she said. "We were recruits together. I thought that he'd quit because of his family, but… I guess he came back because of the wall."

She paused, taking a breath. At one time she used to introduce herself to every recruit, taking pride in knowing their names regardless of whether they came back or not. Now, she'd almost not recognized someone who'd fought with her on her first expedition.

Hanji let out the breath she'd been holding. "I just want to know why," she finished. _And I'm worried about you,_ Hanji added inside her head. She didn't dare say it out loud in case he thought she was pitying him.

Levi let the door fall back open.

Hanji followed him inside where he pushed a chair towards her without a word. The room was dark, the flame in the lamp burning low and casting lines of shadows across the walls. Hanji sat down and Levi leaned against his desk, facing her with arms crossed. Even though the curtains were drawn across his window, Hanji could still hear the crickets outside. She waited for Levi to start.

Instead, he re-crossed his arms and kept staring at her. Hanji fidgeted in her seat before realizing that Levi didn't know /how/ to start. She cleared her throat.

"Are there more?" Hanji asked.

Levi's hands tightened around the bends in his elbows, but then he moved one arm away to open the top drawer of his desk. Hanji felt something heavy sink into her stomach.

The drawer was full of patches, some looking brand new, others stained so dark that it was hard to see the original colors. He'd stacked them in neat piles, the edges of the wings touching each other, but some fell to the side as the drawer opened. Tears welled up in Hanji's eyes at the sight of it. She blinked as fast as she could to prevent them from falling.

"I thought that maybe someone would want them to remember them by," Levi started. "But then I found out that some of them didn't have anyone to remember them, so I kept them instead."

"Mm," Hanji said. It was the best that she could manage around the lump in her throat.

"I saw his family," Levi continued, the tired edge creeping back into his voice. "They were waiting for him. So I gave them one." He reached into the drawer and took out a patch that Hanji recognized. It was the patch he'd taken from Finn's shoulder. Levi ran a finger over the bloodstained edge.

"I kept the other one to remind me to be faster next time."

Hanji stood up, the chair scraping against the floor. The shadows flickered across Levi's face.

"Not what you were expecting?" Levi asked.

"Just—" Hanji wiped her eye with the back of her hand, upset that some tears had leaked out. "Just stay right there. Don't close the door. Just stay put. Okay?" She left, almost tripping over the doorframe and sniffling down the hallway to her own room.

Hanji returned a minute later, halfway expecting that Levi had misunderstood and closed the door anyway. But he was still there, still holding the patch on his palm while he leaned against the desk. Hanji held out what she'd brought back.

"Here. You can have it."

It was a wooden box with a latch on the lid, small enough to sit on a table but big enough that Hanji had to hold it in both hands. A crude replication of the Scout's wings was carved on the top.

"I got it when I was still a recruit, but I never did anything with it," Hanji said to fill the silence. "It's dusty, but—"

"Then I don't want it," Levi said.

" _But_ it's better than just cramming them all in a drawer," Hanji continued, crossing the room and pressing the box into Levi's arms. "And I didn't say that you couldn't clean it first."

Levi didn't say anything as she pulled away, but he didn't try to push the box back to her either. Instead, he turned and set the box and the patch down on the desk and then walked over to a chest pushed against the back corner. Hanji watched as he opened the lid and took out a duster and a rag.

"You're going to clean it right now?" Hanji laughed.

Levi closed the chest and looked back at Hanji. "Why not?" he asked. His eyes seemed a little less dark now.

"You really are a neat freak," Hanji teased as he walked back to the desk.

"Beats walking around in filth all the time like you do," Levi said. He opened the lid of the box and made a face at the clumps of dust inside.

Hanji laughed, and sat back down in the chair Levi had pulled out for her before. She watched him scrape the corners of the box free of dust with the rag. Hanji could tell that there was more to the patches than Levi had admitted to her, but she didn't want to push him any further. She was glad that he'd trusted her enough to tell her anything about what they meant to him.

"Hey," Hanji said. Levi stopped scrubbing for a moment.

"If something ever happens to me out there," Hanji continued. "You can have one of my patches if you want." As soon as Hanji said it, she realized how strange it sounded. Levi turned, but Hanji looked down at her feet before they could make eye contact. Her ears burned. Maybe she'd said too much.

"I'm pretty sure that you'll kill all the Titans in your weird experiments before you let one eat you, four-eyes," Levi said. Hanji looked back up to see Levi take a patch out of the drawer and place it inside the freshly dusted box. "You can have one of mine if you promise to remember the rest of them too," he continued, nodding towards the drawer.

The lump in Hanji's throat returned. "Deal," she said. "Can I—?" She pointed towards the drawer, not trusting herself to say anymore without her voice cracking.

Levi nodded, and Hanji dragged the chair next to him. Balancing a stack of the patches between her hands, Hanji moved them into the box, following the pattern of columns Levi had already set.

"This good?"

"Yeah."

Bit by bit, they transferred the memories of their fallen comrades into the box, their foreheads almost touching.

"You'd better not end up in here, shitty glasses," Levi muttered.

Hanji smiled. "Same to you, Levi."


End file.
